


Six Years is a Long Time but I Still Know all the Tricks

by Cuits



Category: The Newsroom (US TV)
Genre: F/M, het-reccers promt meme, post - season two, promt meme
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-18
Updated: 2013-10-18
Packaged: 2017-12-29 18:35:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1008685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cuits/pseuds/Cuits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"It’s harder to process than it should have been, but eventually Mac realizes that they can’t actually resume their life together as if six years haven’t gone by in the middle"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Six Years is a Long Time but I Still Know all the Tricks

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt provided by vickysg1  
> Beta; the allways charming Dasku

Will groans before even opening his eyes. There is a piercing, insistent pain behind his eyes and the sunlight that filters through the window blinds is nothing less than a pure instrument of all evil to torture him. It’s the morning after and he sports the quintessential hangover. The hangover to rule all hangovers. The hangover that gave name to all the rest.

His brain, barely functional, insists on spinning his surroundings and after what can only be considered an herculean effort, he manages to turn himself over in the bed to lie on his back for a few more minutes, never mind his protesting stomach or the thick, dry state of his mouth.

“God, I’m entirely too old for this.” 

His voice sounds rough, thick with sleep and a considerable amount of secondhand smoke, resounding all around the room, or probably, just all around his head.

There is a groan erupting from the other side of the bed where a pile composed of sheets, pillows and a bedcover starts to move slowly and erratically until a soft creamy hand slides across his naked chest and Mac’s head appears from underneath the hill of bedclothes.

“Promise me we are not going to celebrate anything never ever, ever again.”

He looks at her in the dimmed light of the room, focusing on her features as the room still spins around him.

“You don’t mean that.”

“Right now, I do.”

Her dark hair is tangled and in disarray, she has dark marks under her puffy red eyes and her lips look pale and dry. He has never seen her look so terrible. He has never seen her look so beautiful either.

“I think we have to get up,” he says, but his body doesn’t quite agree with him, and unsurprisingly neither does Mac.

“I think you’re wrong.”

Will, firmly believes in setting example, in owning the moral high ground, so against the explicit desires of his stomach, head and general sense of balance he sits up on the bed and puts his back and head against the headboard.

“Your phone is lighting up like a Christmas tree.”

Mac groans and buries herself deeper into the bedclothes pile. “I don’t care. I’m going to get married to this rich famous guy and I’m not going to have to work never, ever again. I’ll bake. Or something.”

Will can’t help the clumsy guffaw that reverberates all around his brain. “Is that what they taught you at Oxford?”

When the pillow hits his smiley face he thinks that yeah, he can work with this.

*****************************

The thing with happy endings is that they make crappy beginnings. 

After the kisses, the euphoria and the extended celebration, life has to go on and Mac is utterly, absolutely terrified of not being able to keep up with it; there are high quality standards to meet and the fact that she was the one to screw it all up last time is never far from her mind. 

Second chances are rare, third ones are an statistical impossibility.

She has spent the last six years of her life missing Billy, missing the relationship she had with him, the comfort, the happiness, the general good feeling about herself that the aforementioned relationship provided, and now, she is too afraid to mess anything up to actually enjoy the experience.

Things are not as they were six years ago, and that too, is only her fault. 

There is a casual knock on her glass door and when she lifts her eyes from her computer Billy is already opening it and leaning against the door frame.

“How does dinner and a movie at my place tonight sounds to you?”

“It sounds great.”

“Good.”

“Good.”

“See you later then?”

“Of course.”

Will leaves, closing the door after him with a cautious smile on his face and Mac can’t help but wonder where this overly wary guy has come from and what has he done with the Billy she has always known and loved.

There is a ring on her finger. An expensive, gorgeous, engagement ring that she can’t stop touching in a nervous reassuring way, but there is also an uncomfortable doubt that has taken residence at the bottom of her stomach and won’t leave her alone.

What if it isn’t real?, the doubt says, What if he hasn't really forgiven you? What if he can’t trust you anymore?, it keeps asking, not really ever shutting up. What if it doesn’t work this time around?

Mac breathes deeply and closes her eyes and prays to a God that she doesn’t believe in.

Please, she thinks, please, don’t let me screw this up.

****************************************

As the weeks pass by there are new developments in Dantana’s case; several complicated developments that require for all the team to spend vexing, long hours in the company of an army of lawyers.

Will wasn’t spared of this tedious task but being the last one to know anything and given his past as district attorney he was soon released by Rebecca’s team and given the metaphorical free of jail card. 

Mac, on the other hand, is not so lucky.

Or maybe she is. He doesn’t know anymore. What Will does know is that the lawyer that has been assigned to her is young and handsome and fit, and — as Will hasn’t failed to notice — has the unnerving quality of being able to make Mac laugh with a terrifying frequency.

It makes him uncomfortable even though he knows it really shouldn’t, after all she is and has always been her own person and she is entitled to like other people and to laugh and enjoy herself. 

That is what he thinks. That is what he believes. 

The problem is that it isn’t entirely what he feels.

Will finds himself gloomily hanging around the hall more often than not, waiting for her, seated on the hallway floor till it is too late to pretend he stays in the building for any other reason than Mackenzie MacHale. Sometimes he catches sight of himself in the big wall mirror in the hall and has some trouble recognizing his reflection, this tired, insecure guy who seems to need constant reassurance. Will doesn’t like that guy, and he is pretty sure that Mac doesn’t really like him either.

He stuffs his hands in the pockets of his trousers and closes his eyes for a second trying to settle that uncomfortable feeling in his stomach, fighting to keep a calm breathing pattern. 

Mac comes out the office looking tired, the shadow of her laugh still present in her face, and maybe out of pure instinct looks up and down the hallway until her eyes find his and her smile broadens.

Will’s anxieties loosen the grip around his throat a little with that smile.

“You don’t have to wait for me every night, Billy.”

“I like waiting for you every night.”

He puts his hand on the small of her back as they both walk out of the building and he lets himself be comforted by the closeness of her presence, and as they hold hands in the cab on their way home, barely even able to voice their exhaustion through careful whispers, the smell of her hair fills in his lungs and Will feels as if he can finally breath again.

****************************************

It’s late at night and the moonlight plays with the shadows in his room.

Mac stays awake and doesn’t try to go back to sleep. There is the faint noise of the night city life in the streets and the soft rhythm of Will’s chest rising and falling as he sleeps. The air is slightly warm and has hints of his aftershave, her perfume and the lingering aroma of their take-out dinner; it smells like home to her.

She tries to take it all in, the light pressure of the sheets over her and the touch of Billy’s naked skin on her skin where they are touching. This is it. This is happiness.

She raises her hand and carefully, so as to not disturb him, caresses his cheek with all the love she can show in that little gesture.

“I love you,” she murmurs, “I always have and always will.”

Will’s breathing changes infinitesimally as his arm snakes around her waist, bringing her closer to his body.

“Ditto,” he says.

And Mac smiles and closes her eyes against his chest and thinks: Yes, this is it.

 

****************************************

Will is still getting used to this increment in his sister’s attentions since his father died. Every time her name appears on the screen of his phone, he braces himself for whichever problem his father has managed to create this time, before remembering that’s no longer an issue. Instead he finds himself entrapped in what appears to be just a normal, only-checking-in conversation, which ironically, feels absolutely bizarre to him.

“So… how is everything going?” His sister’s voice sounds far too chipper for his liking, but he makes a mental note to tone down the sarcasm a notch just for her benefit.

“Everything is fine.”

“Good. Good.” 

There is a pause while Will searches for the appropriate way to continue in the uncharted territories that are these conversations. One thing is to care, a different one is to call. That’s the way they operated before.

“And how are you?”

“Good,” she says, and then out of nowhere, “are you still engaged to Mac?”

“What the—” Wil stops himself before starting a yelling contest and simply breathes deeply before continuing. “Why would you even ask me something like that?”

“Cause I’m your sister and I love you but I also know you, Billy, and you aren’t the most forgiving and trusting man in the world,” she explains in a very annoying, condescending voice. “And in case you were wondering, that was a euphemism.”

“Everything is fine,” he says because there isn’t much else to say. Maybe he is a little scared that Mac might keep secrets from him, after all, he was the one who told her that he would had rather not known. And yes, maybe he is terrified that things will not work out this time around because although they both love each other and there is no other woman in the world for him, he is not dumb enough to believe that’s all a relationship needs.

Anyway, he is not going to tell any of that to her sister.

“Okay,” she sighs.

“Good.”

There is a soft knock on his crystal door and Will couldn’t be more grateful for the distraction when Sloan comes in and patiently and oddly enough, quietly, sits in the chair in front of his desk.

“Look, I have to work so—”

But her sister doesn’t let him finish. “Have you set a date already?” 

Will rolls his eyes out of desperation and sinks a little more in his seat. “I’m hanging up on you now, sis.” 

He exhales his annoyance as he crosses his hands over the table and refocuses his attention back to work and more specifically, to Sloan.

“What can I do for you?”

Sloan purses her lips and takes a moment before clearly making up her mind and shifting her position.

“Look, I didn’t came here for this, and you obviously don’t need another sister — although I think you really need another sister — so let me say this and then you can kick me out of your office and thank me in a week or two when you realize I am right.” She leans on the table and looks at him in the eye. “It’s not perfect. It’s never going to be perfect and as much as you’d like to fool yourself, it was never perfect. The question is if it’s worth your while.”

And that’s how Sloan, a self-appointed disaster at anything relationship related, is the one that actually manages to help.

****************************************

It’s harder to process than it should have been, but eventually Mac realizes that they can’t actually resume their life together as if six years haven’t gone by in the middle. There are some sleepless nights and anxious days and she might have had to empty the contents of her stomach in the office bathroom more than once or twice, but in the end she figures that the only thing that would be worse than the heartache of a failed relationship would be waking up one day entrapped in a deteriorated relationship that neither of them has the courage to break.

She takes him aside in the studio barely fifteen minutes before the beginning of the show. It may seem childish but the prospect of having something to do, to occupy her mind no matter how this conversation ends puts her slightly at ease.

“Will, I want you to know that even if you don’t want to hear it, I’m always going to tell you what I think and I’m always going going to tell you the truth.”

She cringes and hastes to take his hands in hers as his smile disappears and his shoulders straighten; the catch in his breath is almost audible from a mile away.

“What I mean is that you can trust me, and I need you to trust me because otherwise I can’t marry you.”

Will’s posture relaxes slightly and Mac ponders how six years ago, this conversation wouldn't have taken place, it wouldn’t have been necessary at all. They are not the same people they were back then; the knife scar on her abdomen and the ones all over Will’s soul testify to it. She is not sure which of those is more telling.

Will entangles his fingers with hers and takes a deep, deep breath.

“Okay,” he says. “What do you wanna do?”

“I want to go out, I want to have fun and I want to spend time with you. I want you to fill me in on the gaps of your life that I don’t know about and to tell you stories of where I’ve been. I want to marry you, but before that I want to get to know you again.” 

“Yes.”

The clock on the wall of the studio tells her they are running out of time and she should be back by now so her mind starts to deal with one too many things, not entirely registering his answer. “So what I meant to ask you is if you’ll go out with me, as in a date. As in many dates actually. Do you want to date me?”

But by now Will is already smiling with that special smile that really reaches his eyes, and his hands have left hers and are now reaching for her face.

“Yes,” he says against her lips, “there is nothing I would like more.”

And as their lips touch there is this forgotten electricity, a calmed passion always present when their tongues caress each other’s mouths and they get entangled in each other’s embrace.

In the background, the clock on the wall keeps ticking.


End file.
